They come bearing resumes, business cards and billing invoices.
They’ve got child-care training, first-aid expertise and an arsenal of educational activities to keep the kids amused.
These are not Super Nannies. They’re not even child-care professionals.
They’re the bubble gum-chewing babysitters from down the block, those trusty neighborhood teens who keep an eye on the children for a few extra bucks.
And these days, they mean big business.
“I can remember getting $1-$2 an hour, if I was lucky,” said Kris Evans Viner, 37, a Wethersfield, Conn., mother of two who pays her formally trained babysitter $7 an hour.
“When I was (a teenager), you just kind of went out and you did it.”
Today’s sitters are likely to come with more training and business savvy than their ponytailed predecessors. They’ve taken hours-long instruction in babysitting, studying the ins and outs of diapering and feeding, of household safety and first aid.
They’ve learned to entertain finicky toddlers and coax the petulant to bed. And given the realities of today’s modern families, they’ve learned to maneuver delicately around the potential land mines of divorce, blended families and special-needs children.
For all this, these business-minded teens can command as much as $10 an hour (a princely sum, considering that child-care professionals earn an average of $8.57, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
“If your local McDonald’s is paying kids $10 an hour, you can pretty much bet your local sitter is going to charge you the same rate,” said Karen Willson, program manager for babysittingclass.com, an online training program based in San Diego.
Willson’s course has been training teens to deal with these new challenges for five years. For $17.50, students age 11 or older get six hours of schooling that includes accident prevention and general child-care – and how to occupy their charges with inventive activities.
The company teaches adolescent entrepreneurs how to operate like a business. Networking and marketing, rate negotiations and billing – it’s all part of the course.
“This is an actual job. And we have to teach them that,” Willson said. “Keeping the proper records, showing up on time, showing up prepared, not calling your boyfriend on your cellphone, not using this as a time to pig out on the parents’ refrigerator or sit in front of the TV.
“The sitter is not there to amuse herself. When she’s on duty for the parents, she’s there to be the protector and the watcher.”
Students earn their certification by passing a comprehensive set of tests. They get a handy wallet card that attests to potential employers their official babysitting credentials. They also can check back with instructors by e-mail for pointers and solutions to unanticipated problems.
